Spring has sprung...kinda

May 3rd and it's a beautiful, sunny 64 degrees here in Dallas.  Yes Dallas, Texas.  I'm not sure I've ever worn a sweater in May before but I'm wearing one today.  I had to have one on yesterday since it was a whopping 40 degrees.  Unexpected to say the least.

My garden is back in full swing with lots of kale, tomato, pepper, onion, basil and squash.  We might be on squash overload this year because I threw a few seeds in the garden box early on.  When nothing happened, I got impatient and bought some started squash plants.  Now the seeds have sprouted.  Good thing hubby likes squash.

The biggest disappointment from the last month is that I've discovered I cannot grow an avocado tree here in Dallas.  After LOTS of online research, It appears our climate is too cold as one hard freeze will kill an avocado tree dead.  Boo.  Also they take 7 YEARS before they produce fruit.  I practically eat an avocado a day so I'm not sure I can wait that long (even if it were possible).

I heard about a book called Absolutely Avocados in last month's Redbook mag.  This chick claims you can substitute an avocado for the stick of butter used in chocolate chip cookies.  No lie!  Her food looks pretty good so I'm tempted to order the book and give it a try.

There are also quite a few home renovations in the air for this spring/summer.  And I have plans to put a chicken coop in my back yard!  I'm SO excited about having chickens.  Lots to do - and as my dad would say - I'd "better get busy, cause times a wastin'."

Yesterday I bought a Wok...

I figured since my garden is taking off so well, I'm going to need it to cook all my delicious veggies. I got a 20% off coupon from Bed, Bath and Beyond to use on one item so this is what I picked:

The Awesome Wok

Of course I had to try it out immediately. I've had Jessica Seinfeld's book, Double Delicious for a while now but I've yet to cook out of it.  I think the book is geared more towards people with kids since a lot of it is about sneaking healthy stuff - like cauliflower puree - into your recipes. I decided to try the Orange Beef.

Orange Beef with Carrots and Broccoli

I have to say, although it didn't look as lovely as the picture above, it was pretty tasty.  The recipe is fairly healthy - it calls for low sodium soy sauce, fresh ginger and fresh OJ.  What really makes it good is the chili paste.  I love spicy food!





And now a picture of Beans, just because I love him so much.

Beans MF

Gardening - the badass way.

Remember that bucket of plants I posted when I was starting my garden? If not you can refresh your memory here.

Now my garden looks like this:

tomato plants

tomato, squash, zucchini, okra, peppers, strawberries, dill, garlic, chives, onion

The cucumbers like to climb.  Those flowers will hopefully turn into delicious cucumbers!

Crazy Squash Plant 2012??

Notice the lack of beets.  In case you didn't know about my disdain for beets you can check that out here. 
Farmers market, here I come!

Cooking from my garden.

I'm very excited about the massive plant in my garden FINALLY producing something.  I couldn't tell if it was going to be a squash or zucchini plant but, after it began flowering, I suspected it was a zucchini.  The flowers are edible.  I had some on my trip to Italy.  The Italians like to stuff them with cheese and fry them.  Delicious.  Here is an actual photograph of one I ate in Italy.  It doesn't look as good as it tasted because this pic is in black and white - but trust me - It was yummy.

I didn't want to eat the flowers without getting some actual vegetable so I had a serious conversation with my plant.  I marched out to my garden and basically threatened to yank its flowers off and start devouring them if it didn't make something soon. Sure enough, after "the talk" a good sized zucchini magically appeared.  Sometimes you have to show your plants who's boss!

Lately I've been obsessed with a website called Gojee.  It pulls all sorts of different recipes from food bloggers and such.  You can actually type in ingredients you have, or what you don't like, and it will spit out some suggestions.  Well of course I typed in zucchini.  I could just cut it up and grill it but after being mean to my plant I decided I needed to do something special.

A quick search led me to Aggie's Kitchen and a recipe for Baked Parmesan Zucchini Sticks.

(Sidenote: Aggie is not an Aggie as in Texas A&M, as I originally assumed.  Being from Texas, I think this was a fair and honest mistake.  Her name is just Aggie - unassociated with the college.)

I have decided to give the recipe a go with my zucchini.  Here is my lovely creation before I butchered it:

You have to cut it up into sticks.  Don't worry, I didn't do this in front of my plant.  That would just be cruel.




The set up: Zucchini Sticks, Egg, Breadcrumb/Parmesan/Spice Mixture




Zucchini taking their egg bath...

After their bath they were dipped in the breadcrumb mixture and into the oven.  I think the Italians would have probably fried them.  Italians fry a lot of things (surprisingly).  This is the somewhat healthy version so they get baked.



TA-DA!  The final Product!  I realize that serving these with ranch took away the health factor.  They would have been good with marinara also.  All-in-all quite delicious.  Highly recommended.










Although this is not a food blog, I have a future post in the works about how to make the Perfect Grilled Cheese - because I have perfected this art and think its important to share with the world.  Stay tuned!

I'm BACK!

So... I haven't blogged in a long-ass time!  That's what happens when you focus on nonsense instead of the important things.  That's what I've been doing lately...focusing on nonsense.  Its time to get back to business!

There are a lot of exciting things going on right now.  I'm starting my Tracy Anderson Metamorphosis on Monday.  I actually got my butt out of bed and started working out today just for good measure - but I don't start the full on program until Monday AM.  Its never to late to get in shape for bathing suit season! 

Also, after a lot of hassle, I finally have a fully functioning printing press! (FedEx did a poor job shipping it and it arrived broken).  Now its fixed and I already have a project to work on this weekend for my best friend who is a Senior Lecturer at A&M.  I need to think of a name for my little printing press business...  I think I'm going to name it after my little pug, Iris.  Not really fair to her brother, but I just love the name Iris.  I almost wish I had saved it for a future daughter.  Now, of course, I can't name a future daughter Iris because I suppose its vaugely insulting to be named after the dog. 

My other project is my house.  After being there almost 3 months it is still not all set up.  I have lots of decorating to do yet and need to purchase a lot of large items - such as a dining room table and office furniture.  I'm on a timeline because I want to have a housewarming party this summer!  Also I have a huge garden box (16 feet by 4 feet) that I am currently filling up with carrots, peppers, tomatoes, squash, and whatever else I can think of to grow.  If I'm successful I am going to have a lot of food to bring to the office!

I'm really inspired right now to get my whole life into shape.  People are constantly changing and I feel like now is a good time to put my life in a better direction than it has been the last few months.  Stay tuned for more!

Gardening and Pickling

I recently started a foray into pickling.  This comes after my limited success with gardening of sorts.  I thought for a long time I couldn't grow anything.  I killed aloe vera, which I've been told is one of the easiest plants to grow.  I convinced myself I didn't have a green thumb. 

I don't know why I wanted to try again, but I have always wanted a pepper plant, so I gave it a shot.  I bought the little guy at Lowe's and put him on my patio.  Immediately he produced two peppers, but then did little else.  I'm pretty sure I did everything one could do wrong to my pepper plant, including leaving the poor thing out during the most significant snow Texas has see in several years.  I apologized to him profusely, begging it not to die.  To my excitement/astonishment, he lived.  This spring he produced about 5 peppers, all of them MUCH hotter than the two initial peppers.  I'm convinced he was mad at me for the snowstorm incident.

After the success of my pepper plant, I started some herbs, including basil which I grew from the seed.  I now have chive, mint, my basil and yes, even an aloe vera plant (which I'm happy to say is doing very well). 

So now I am on to pickling.  I ran across some fresh okra at central market one day and thought "I want to pickle that."  who knows why?  It seemed like a good idea.  I bought the okra and some pickling spice and went home very cheery.  Too bad I forgot I didn't have any mason jars.  Bummer. 

I located some jars, lids and rings the next day.  I got a recipe off the Internet and set to work.  For a novice, pickling is a lot of work.  You have to sterilize everything and since I was paranoid, I think I sterilized everything twice.  I did a lot of things wrong.  I ran out of vinegar half-way through, as well as salt (not to mention my salt was the wrong kind).  I didn't pack the jars full enough.  I forgot to get garlic.  My jars were too big.  Not to mention the fact that it took me several hours to finish the whole ordeal.  I got through around 1 am.  But in the end I had 4 large jars of pickled okra. 

Recently I went to my grandmothers house and talked to her about my pickling adventures.  I should have talked to her before I started.  She gave me an old pickling/canning cookbook that had tons of recipes, including some of her own handwritten ones.  She gave me a ton of jars and rings.  We spent quite a bit of time bonding over what you should/can/don't have to do when pickling.  I got a ton of info from her.  My grandmother and I didn't always get along but we have become much closer in recent years.  She is kind of a distant woman, but she lights up when we have a common interest.  My mother canned and pickled also.  In a weird way, I feel closer to both of them for taking up this little hobby. 

So tonight, I am on to pickling, well, pickles actually.  I guess technically cucumbers.  I will do some more okra also.  I went a little crazy at the farmer's market on Sunday.  At some point tomorrow, I will probably call my grandmother to talk about it and ask some question about what I think I did wrong.  She will be reassuring but I won't be convinced until I taste the results for myself....a month or so from now.